“He was not complicit with the dictatorship, he did not collaborate,” Perez Esquivel told reporters, following criticism of the pope for not speaking out against the 1976-1983 regime when he was head of the Jesuit order in Argentina.

“He preferred a silent diplomacy,” said Perez Esquivel, a prominent human rights activist who campaigned against the Argentinian junta.

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“The pope had nothing to do with the dictatorship,” he said.

Perez Esquivel said there was “no proof” of any link with the dictatorship.

The Nobeal laureate said he and the pope discussed human rights and that the pontiff had called for “truth, justice and compensation”.